Engineer Babar

China warned of a "grave" situation in the jobs market with millions of graduates and migrant workers yet to find work as companies continue to struggle with the effects of the global slump.

The comments come as Beijing struggles to keep a lid on joblessness, which it sees as necessary to stop social unrest.

"China's current employment situation is still grave and the pressure for job creation remains large," said Wang Yadong, a senior official at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security's employment section.

"To make things worse, the impact of the international financial crisis has not yet bottomed out and a lot of companies are still facing business difficulties, posing big unemployment risks," he told reporters.

Wang said around 147 million migrant workers had moved to cities for jobs by June but more than four million had yet to find one.

Moreover, three million university graduates, including those who had left last year, were still unemployed, he said.

China's urban registered unemployment rate stood at 4.3 percent in the second quarter, unchanged from the first three months and up from 4.2 percent at the end of 2008, Wang said.

Wang added that the government aimed to keep the rate below 4.6 percent this year.

However, the actual jobless figure may be much bigger than the official rate, which does not include migrant workers and university graduates.

Chinese authorities fear that rising unemployment could provoke unrest in the country, and have already taken a number of measures to try and tackle the problem, including ordering state-run firms to ease up on job cuts.

Despite the measures, the government has scaled down its ambitions, targeting the creation of nine million jobs this year, one million fewer than last year, officials have said.

China's economy grew by 6.1 percent in the first quarter, and 7.9 percent in the second, but the government says it needs at least eight percent growth to keep unemployment at bay.